He considered himself an easygoing guy with a girlfriend more then capable of taking care of herself in the bars. Occasionally Briareos felt like breaking the skulls of any asshole who dared to lay a finger on Deunan. Fortunately, his girl could normally detect his mood and call it an early night for both of them. Some nights, however, she put away quite a few drinks with the guys before the cyborg's mood became evident. This was going to be one of those nights.
Bri didn't need the Hecatonchires to tell him it was stupid and that Deunan would smack him later for acting like a jealous boyfriend. He knew the feeling came from his underlying fear that the beautiful girl would come to her senses and finally realize she deserved a man entirely of flesh and blood and not a monstrosity of synthetic skin and metal. Knowing that didn't make the violent urges go away, sometimes it just made them worse.
"I warned that newb to stay away from her, but it doesn't look like he listened to me", Briareos overheard from the ESWAT officer talking next to him at the bar.
"I lost count of how many she's had, but you know Deunan, there's nothing she can't handle", the other officer said, clearly not paying attention to the cyborg behind her.
Briareos turned to try and locate his missing partner and saw the new guy subtly and steadily backing the blonde into the dark corner towards the back door. Bri didn't miss the dead man gently brushing a tress of hair away from her lovely face.
The cyborg shot off of the bar stool he had occupied most of the evening and began storming through the crowd, cracking his knuckles as he went. The other bar patrons quickly recognized his juggernaut charge and dove out of his way, no one wanting to get between him and his target.
He caught Deunan's gaze two seconds before he clamped a hand on the guy's shoulder, and saw a glimmer of fear in her turquoise eyes. Not fear of him, but for him and what he was about to do to the poor unaware bastard who picked the wrong girl to mess with.
A/N: I was listening to Nickleback's "Next Contestant" and this idea just wouldn't leave me alone. Curse you rabid plot bunnies! It also came from a conversation with a very mellow guy (alot like Bri actually) who told me some times easy going guys just go into angry mode when something hits them wrong. I always just called it testosterone poisoning. Sadly still don't own Appleseed. I'd be happy to own the Citizen watch from XIII but that cost as much as the downpayment on my car. Has a sad.